


Mementoes

by rethrin



Category: Franklin & Bash
Genre: Embarrassment, Ep 107: Franklin vs Bash, First Kiss, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rethrin/pseuds/rethrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU scene in Franklin vs Bash, where their trick with the safety deposit box is not so much a trick as the most embarrassing moment of Jared's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mementoes

"Go on, amuse us with your precious valuables."

Jared's stomach coiled inside him, he could feel every pair of eyes on him. He swallowed hard, he felt suddenly lost in the middle of the room, he looked blankly at the judge and tried to remember what he was doing there. 

"I'll um, I'll take contempt, your honour. It's fair."

"You need a dose of your own medicine, Mr Franklin. Open the box."

Jared turned to look at Peter, waiting for him to say something, do _something_. Peter sort of shrugged at him, with a half hearted look of apology. Their plan hadn't worked, he might as well just get on with it, the look said. Jared wanted to kill him. 

He'd dragged him in here. Not giving him the _two minutes_ it would have taken to empty the thing out before they got here. _'It's just a prop, it doesn't matter what's in it,'_ Peter had said. _'You won't have to open it, just let her think it's hers and she'll trip up.'_

He looked back at the judge. "Er, I don't have the key."

"I think you'll find it in your pocket. Where you just put it."

There was a tittering around the room. Jared wondered if everyone could hear his breath, it seemed deafening to him. He held the box closer, and tried to smile. "Really, I'll take contempt."

"I think I've made myself quite clear. Open the box, and we'll accept the contents into evidence."

"Um, it's . . there's nothing in it really," he said, and he knew that was lame.

"If you'd rather I can have an usher take it from you?"

Jared swallowed hard, and shot a desperate look at Peter, who was still not helping him. Who was just looking at him, confused about why he was so worried. Peter didn't know what was in it, or why he needed help. 

He started fishing out the key and turned towards the jury, concentrating on the faces in front of him. The jury were the only people in the room, he'd been taught that often enough, he knew how to do that. He tried to smile. 

He wondered if he could pretend the key didn't work, break it off in the lock, anything. But by the time he thought of it he'd already opened it, so he reached inside.

He pulled out a small box. Thank god. That was an easy one. "Er, okay. It's my grandma's engagement ring. My mom wanted me to have it, you know, for if I ever meet that special someone," he said. 

He flicked open the box, and showed it to the jury, they made appreciative noises. It really was beautiful, it was the reason he owned a safety deposit box in the first place. He smiled charmingly, and slipped the ring into his pocket.

The second thing he pulled out was worse. "It's..." he held up the bit of paper. "Um, it's a song," he said "I didn't even know I had it." It was written in pencil, on faded musical-lined note paper. _Don't make me read it out, don't make me read it out._

"Did you write it?" the judge asked, smiling, clearly sensing impending embarrassment.

"No, I, uh... It was just a song I liked, someone wrote down the music for me." _Don't make me read it out._

"Alright."

Jared looked up, hardly believing him, but the judge gestured for him to move on. He shoved the song in his pocket, grateful beyond words, and reached for the next thing. 

"Oh. That's - it's a charm." He swallowed hard, didn't turn his head. He held it up so the jury could see, it was made from a thin leather cord, knotted and twisted into a neat figure of eight, wound through with thread. "The different knots protect against . . . danger and stuff, I think. It's kind of neat."

Jared's throat was dry. The judge raised his eyebrows, obviously asking for more, why it was special.

"Er. I had it when I went into hospital. When I was little?" 

One of the prettier jurors smiled at him, amused. And he smiled back. 

"Littler," he said with a wink, and that made all the jury smile kindly at him. This would be easier with them on his side.

He got a nod from the judge, and moved on to the next thing. A pack of letters, bound with an elastic band. He held them in front of him. "Uh, they're letters." There were about thirty, all in light purple envelopes.

"From someone special, no doubt," the judge said, smiling.

Jared nodded, and met his eyes. They both knew he could humiliate him entirely right now. _Please don't make me read them._

"Well, I think the court can live without hearing your love letters, Mr Franklin." 

_Thank fuck._ He went to put them in a pocket, but somehow they fell, and he had to turn to pick them up off the floor. He kept his eyes down, grabbed them quickly and shoved them into his jacket pocket. He stood again, turned further towards the jury. Knew he was flushed. Tried to smile.

He reached in again, and found something easy. "A programme for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

"My wife and I caught that twice on Broadway." The judge smiled.

"Uh. This is my high-school production. I was the butler." 

That wouldn't need any more explanation, they didn't need to know what was written on the back. He slipped the programme into the same hand holding the box, running out of pocket space now. He reached into the box again.

"Oh." He couldn't help smiling. "That's me and, uh, Mr Bash," he kind of half gestured towards Peter with his shoulder. "When we were thirteen." He handed the photo to one of the jurors and let them pass it around. "We were camping. It was a weekend adventure thing." They were standing next to their tent, smiling, both young and a bit awkward looking. Peter only slightly taller than him.

Next came a flattened bottle cap, which he didn't bother to explain, said he couldn't remember it. He was lying to a judge and he didn't care. He just needed to get through this and then he'd go and then he'd just never see Peter again, that was his plan. It was a good plan. He liked it.

He pulled out some papers, neatly folded in half, held with a clip. He held them up very briefly. "That's one of the letters, come loose," he said and pushed it into his pocket. The next bit of paper was clearly not a letter, it was a lined A4 sheet, yellow, folded over itself so it was small and thick. He held it up and opened his mouth but didn't find any words. 

"And what's that?" Judge Douglas asked. Jared blinked, he couldn't think of a lie that would mean he didn't have to unfold it and get found out. "Why don't you open it up and let us see for ourselves?"

Jared nodded, but didn't move to open it. "It's personal, your honour," he said. He knew it sounded weak, and he knew it wouldn't do any good, but he said it anyway. 

"It's evidence in this trial, Mr Franklin. You submitted it."

Jared nodded. _Peter submitted it,_ he thought bitterly. 

He started opening it up. "It's just nonsense, I kept it because it says that one of my friends owes me a million dollars, not a serious bet, but good to keep in case he wins the lottery, you know?" 

The jury smiled and he showed them the paper, it was written all over, doodles, and scribbles. He heard Peter behind him, moving in his chair. He clenched his jaw, and folded the paper back up, not giving the judge a chance to make him read it out, not that it said anything, not really. 

Next was a small box with shells in it. He blushed as he opened it. "I just like them."

Then two birthday cards. The first was from when he was 17, Peter had been away for his birthday and it had come through the mail. It had Gillian Anderson on it, and the judge made him read it out. Apparently birthday cards didn't get the same pass as love letters. Jared couldn't decide where he was going to move to. Europe, probably. Or maybe Mongolia. 

"It's from Peter. It says 'Happy Birthday', he said, and ignored the bit below that said _'wish I was there, it's boring as hell here, miss you'_.

The second one was more recent. It was home-made, pictures printed out and stuck on. Judd Nelson on one side and Joe Pesci on the other. "Um, they're our lawyering heroes," he explained. "From the Hip? And My Cousin Vinny?" The judge nodded understandingly. 

Jared went to put it away, but the judge shook his head. "I assume it is also from Mr Bash?" Jared nodded. "Open it up, let us hear what he wrote."

"It says 'happy birthday'," he said, but the judge raised an eyebrow and Jared sighed. "It's from a few years ago. It says 'they haven't been the worst twenty years'. We, uh. We met when we were twelve, so ..." He didn't turn around, and he didn't explain any more. 

"Very romantic," the judge said, and people laughed, they didn't mean anything awful by it, it was an easy joke. He glared at the judge and put the card back in the box. 

He took out a snow globe with a pyramid in it, a souvenir from Vegas, shook it for the jury. ("It was my first trip there, we were nineteen," he said.) Then a stack of baseball cards he'd collected when he was young. Then a scrap torn out of the paper. ("It's a review of a local band I liked," he said and moved swiftly on.) An earring. ("I used to have..." he touched his ear, where the hole had healed over. "When I was at college.") A champagne cork. ("Some celebration, I don't remember.") A cinema ticket. ("Star Trek five, your honour, The Final Frontier. It's a classic.")

"The rest's just rubbish," he said, and he heard Janie snort and he'd forgotten she was there and he hated her and he hated the judge and he hated Peter Bash, he could _hear_ him watching him.

"Let's see it anyway." He hated the judge most. 

He went on like that, moving quickly through the few remaining things. Each one fine by itself, but he could feel Peter's eyes burning into his back, he knew what they added up to.

"Is that everything?" Judge Douglas asked eventually.

Jared nodded and started putting things back into the box. He knew he was going to have to turn around. He hadn't worked out how yet.

"Very good," the Judge said. "Now we have that out of the way, do you have any further questions for the witness?"

Jared shook his head, he couldn't look at the judge, couldn't look at anyone. He looked at his feet. 

Peter was standing up when he turned around, but Jared walked straight past him, he ignored his out-stretched hand, he didn't listen when he said his name. He took the box with him, he didn't care if it was evidence, it was _his_ , and if they locked him up that would be fine, prison would be one way to avoid Peter. 

He heard the judge telling Peter to return to his seat, he pushed through the doors and just kept walking. He'd go to the airport. Or find a hotel. He'd never have to see him again. 

In the car he found himself driving home anyway. He started lying to himself. Maybe Peter wouldn't say anything, maybe he'd just come home and pretend it hadn't happened, maybe it wasn't even that weird, maybe Peter didn't remember half the stuff, and lots of people had a box of keepsakes, so what if he kept his in the bank. His cheeks were burning. He'd just ask Peter if they could never talk about it again, and if Peter said no, then he'd leave. Or he'd beg or something.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Peter got home five minutes after him. He must have talked his way out of court really quick. Jared had thrown his jacket and tie on the floor, and was stuffing things into a bag. He heard him call out and pretended he hadn't. When he opened the bedroom door Jared kept his back to him, because he could never look at him again, that was all.

"Sorry," Jared said, because he had to say something, and maybe that would be enough. 

"What're you doing?" 

Jared wondered why the hell he hadn't been spending the last five minutes getting drunk. This would be easier drunk. 

"I don't know." He dropped the bag to the floor. "I _told_ you I didn't want to take that box in there. I needed _two fucking minutes_." He spun around to look at Peter, furious suddenly. "That's all it would have taken, and he couldn't have sat there and made me do that. Two minutes. And you didn't even try to stop him."

"I didn't know." Peter glanced at the bed, where the box was lying. "I figured it would be shares and whatever."

"Well it's not." Jared's shoulders sagged. "It's just stuff," he said, trying to say it wasn't important and Peter shouldn't make a big deal of it, and they should just ignore it, but Peter was walking over to the bed. He wanted to stop him, not let him look, he should have hidden it. But Peter had already seen it all anyway. 

Peter sat on the bed, and opened the box. He picked out the charm. 

"I didn't know you kept it." He stroked it, and smiled. "I made four of them before I got it right, before mom said it was good enough." 

He smiled over at Jared, and Jared just wanted to take it out of his hand, make sure he knew he wasn't allowed it back, because it was _his_.

"You told me your mom gave it to you to give me," Jared said.

"Yeah, well. I was fourteen." He paused. "You kept it anyway."

"Your mom told me you made it."

Peter nodded and put it on the bed. 

"You kept our agreement," he said, looking for it in the box. "I looked everywhere for that."

The folded up, scribbled on, bit of paper. They'd sworn not to let a case come between them, then they'd crossed it out, and sworn other things. They'd covered the whole page. They'd sworn that if either of them won the lottery they would split it, so he hadn't been lying not really. But the reason he kept it was the bit where Peter had written that they would always be a team, Franklin & Bash, no matter what, and made Jared sign it. 

Peter didn't find it, he pulled out the box of shells instead. 

"Don't," Jared said. 

"I just want to look." Peter opened the box, and spilled the shells out onto the bedding. "I used to hate going to that damn retreat."

His mom had taken him there for weekends twice a year. And there was nothing to bring back, no sweets or toys. So he'd given Jared one of the shells he'd collected there. As casually as he'd known how, with a joke about how stupid it was. But Jared had kept it on his desk all year, so the next time Peter had brought him a couple more. And then a few every time after that. Fourteen of them altogether. Peter ran his hand over them, he'd spent hours looking for them, picking out the prettiest ones, always wondering if this time Jared would laugh at him for it. 

He looked back in the box, and grinned. He pulled out the song sheet. "Wow."

Jared climbed onto the end of the bed, and sat cross-legged, watched as Peter flicked through the pages. 

"What was I, fifteen?"

Jared shrugged as if he wasn't sure when Peter had written it, as if the summer Peter had gone to jazz camp hadn't been the worst summer of Jared's life, as if Peter having written him a fucking song wasn't one of his best moments ever. 

He reached out because he couldn't stop himself and he took it off Peter and put it out of his reach. It was _his_. Peter looked at him weirdly, like he was working him out. Jared started collecting up the shells back into their box. Peter had better not think he was allowed to take things back.

"The letters were from me?"

Jared didn't look at him, he bit his lip and he nodded. He put the shells back into the safety deposit box and pulled it nearer to him. Away from Peter.

"Where's the bottle cap from?"

"Don't know." Peter waited and Jared gave up. "It was our first night here. That weird Italian beer you bought."

They'd been sleeping on the floor in the front room, no furniture yet except camp chairs.

Peter smiled. "Yeah, I remember. And the champagne cork?"

"Our first win."

They sat for a minute, until Jared thought he was going to die.

"It's not..." Jared didn't know what it wasn't. Just that it wasn't. "I'm not . . . whatever you think. It's just stuff I don't want to lose."

"Okay."

Peter kept looking at Jared, really looking at him, looking into him. Jared hated it, he swung his legs off the bed, faced away.

Peter stood up then and left without saying anything and Jared took a deep deep breath. He didn't know what that meant. Didn't know what he'd said. Or what he was meant to do. 

But Peter was back two seconds later, and he had a shoe box, which he put on the bed. He pushed it towards Jared and then sat down again.

Jared looked at him, confused as hell. Then he opened it. He flicked his eyes back up to Peter, and he almost smiled, hope rising in his chest. There were letters, tied up with string. Jared's writing scrawled on the envelopes. And a few photos. 

Jared picked through them, they were mostly of him and Peter together, but there were a few of Jared on his own. One he didn't know Peter had taken, the day he'd left for college, he was packing and the photo was taken through the door to his room.

Peter picked up one of the others, it was of Jared in a hard hat, threatening the photographer, Peter, with a hammer. They were young. They'd been building a go-kart - the go-kart that Peter had broken his wrist in, because he was an idiot who couldn't steer. 

"That's the one I always took with me. To camp or wherever," Peter said, with a tilted smile, and Jared felt his heart flip and tried not to let it show. He took the photo off Peter, and held it for a while, but Peter took it back and put it pointedly out of his reach. Jared smiled at that, and Peter smiled back and Jared started to breathe a bit easier.

He moved the letters out of the way, and underneath there was a map, Jared didn't have to open it to know what it was. All the places they'd been going to visit on their road trip the summer of graduation marked in red ink. They'd never gone, but Jared could remember every bit of it as though they had. They'd driven it in their minds so often.

There was a small silver frog Jared remembered buying Peter one Christmas, because Peter was scared of frogs. The time he had found that out - when Peter ended up backed into a corner of the garage, pretending he wasn't scared while also begging Jared to stop it coming closer - Jared had laughed til he fell over. 

There was a matchbook. He picked it up and turned it over. He didn't recognise the hotel name and must have looked puzzled. Peter took it off him, opened it, and gave it back. Jared had written in it, _"thanks, love you, sorry."_ It had been the only thing he could find to write on in the hotel room, so he'd left it on the bed when he snuck out in the morning. He'd had a bad night, he'd cried and Peter had held him. All night. That happened sometimes, it was one of the things they didn't talk about. Jared closed the matches quickly and put them down, he didn't want to think about that. Peter had kept it, though. He might think about that.

He wanted to empty the box out, to pick it through piece by piece, but it felt wrong, he didn't have a clue what any of it meant. 

"Where do you keep it?" He was genuinely confused. He knew most of the stuff in Peter's room. That was one of the reasons he'd moved his things to the safety deposit box, he'd been scared of Peter finding it. They weren't that big on privacy.

"Top of the wardrobe," Peter said, and Jared smiled and huffed. Places he couldn't reach. 

"Are you in love with me?" Peter asked then, and Jared felt like he'd hit him. His face fell, his stomach tightened, and he didn't know where to look. Peter nodded towards the safety deposit box. "Is that what all this means?" 

"Is it what this means?" Jared asked, angrily, pushing Peter's shoe box towards him. 

"I don't know," Peter said calmly, and shrugged. "I've never known." 

"Well I don't know either then."

"Okay."

Jared got off the bed and went across the room, not to anywhere, just needing not to look at him. He heard Peter sigh, angry or just frustrated, Jared didn't know. 

"You can't just ask me that," he said.

"Okay," Peter said again, and Jared heard him stand up. "Do you want me to go?"

"No. Yes. I . . . What do you want?"

"I want to talk about this."

Jared's shoulders sagged. "About what, though?"

Peter took a deep breath. "About us. When I fell off that go-kart you . . . you held my hand for a bit. I remember hoping," he stopped, and breathed for a minute and Jared wanted to turn and look at him, but he was physically incapable of that because his insides were a twisted mess. "I remember thinking you might kiss me. That's why I kept the photo." 

He said it in a rush, and then when Jared didn't say anything he just kept going. 

"And when we were apart I used to keep your letters in my pocket, like a security blanket or something. The ones where you said you missed me, or talked about stuff we could do in the holidays."

 _'When we were apart,'_ meant college, it meant the stupid year they'd wasted being in different states, both pretending that made any sense, pretending they'd get used to it. 

Jared must have been quiet too long because Peter went on, sounding suddenly very scared. 

"I'm not saying that I want . . . anything. But . . . I just thought . . ."

Jared closed his eyes, and forced himself to speak. "I wore that earring you sent me every day. I used to write you about three letters a week I didn't send because I knew it was too many."

He turned around, and Peter looked like he might be having trouble breathing, so Jared went over to him as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Hugging Peter _was_ pretty much the easiest thing in the world. Always had been. He wrapped his arms around Peter's waist, and just stayed there. He had his arms under Peter's jacket which he wouldn't usually dare. It felt like it should probably be awkward, but it was the least awkward thing he'd done all day.

They stayed there for a few minutes, just breathing and holding each other.

"What are we gonna do?" Jared asked.

Peter shrugged. "We could just stay like this."

"We'd get bored."

"Not sure I would," Peter said with a squeeze and Jared half laughed at him for saying romantic things, but it sort of made his breath catch too. 

Then before he knew it he was reaching up and pulling Peter's head down, and he kissed him. Quick, and soft, and barely anything, their lips just brushing over each other. But it felt fucking amazing, and Jared looked at him to make sure it was okay, and then did it again.

"I like that," Peter whispered.

Jared nodded, burying his face in Peter's shirt again. He liked that too. 

"We don't have to know what it is," Peter said. "We don't have to decide anything yet."

Jared liked that even more. 

"But it's something, yeah?" Peter added, kind of quietly. And Jared positively loved that. He nodded hard. Peter kissed him again, just a little harder than before.

They moved apart, smiling. Peter sat down and started picking up his photos again. 

"That adventure camp thing when we were thirteen?" Peter said, and he was quiet. "That was the first time we slept . . . you know, near each other. Is that . ." He stopped, he sounded embarrassed, like he'd realised that Jared might have liked that photo for a million different reasons.

"Yeah, that's why," Jared said with a smile. That's why he kept it, that's why it was important, more important than the million other pictures of Peter he kept. 

Peter smiled with a slight dip of his head like he was almost embarrassed about being pleased. 

Jared picked up his deposit box and went to put it on the dresser.

"I thought you'd think I was a freak," he said. "In court."

"I'd have died if it was the other way round," Peter said. "I should have thought of something to say so they'd let you stop, but... I sort of didn't want you to."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Next time you tell me you love me it would be easier if you didn't do it in the middle of court, but it was pretty amazing."

Jared smiled widely at him, but when Peter looked away again it faded quickly. He leaned against the dresser and watched Peter putting things back in his shoebox. 

"You think everyone knew what was going on?" He sounded pretty casual about it, he thought. For the most humiliating experience of his entire life he sounded casual.

Peter shook his head. "They were all confused about you leaving like that. Judge Douglas let me come after you; I think he knows he made a dick move, but I don't think he knew why. It was just random stuff to everyone else."

"Yeh." Jared still felt like he'd made a total fool of himself. Then he shrugged. Peter didn't care, so whatever. He grinned. "You know you're not taking that box out of here until I've seen everything, right? I showed you mine."

Peter held onto the lid he'd been about to put on, and clearly still wanted to. But he sighed and put it to one side instead. "Okay, but I swear, if you laugh at me..."

"Dude," Jared kind of touched his hand as he went to sit on the bed again. "I kept the cap from your beer."

Peter gave a small smile. "I kept the pen we signed the lease with."

Jared smiled because Peter was a sap, and they were both idiots, but he felt ridiculously warm inside. 

He turned the box over, tipping out the contents. He picked a coin out and held it up questioningly.

"It's the one we used to decide whose name went first."

"Ah," Jared nodded approvingly. "Fate knew a good name when it heard one."

"You totally cheated."

"I didn't cheat!"

"You totally cheated."

"I totally cheated." Jared grinned. He flipped the coin again, and hid it under his hand. "Heads you have to make me a sandwich."

"And tails?"

"Tails, you don't."

"Okay."

He looked. "It's tails. You should make me a sandwich anyway."

Peter grinned, and meant that Jared was an idiot if he thought that was happening. "You lost."

"Yeah, but you're a little bit in love with me," Jared said, and he couldn't look at Peter when he said it, but it felt really good anyway. And when he glanced up Peter was nodding at him a little bit. Then he leaned forwards and kissed him on his cheek. 

Peter started getting up, but he caught Jared's hand and held it for a second.

"Don't change your mind while I'm gone," he said softly. Then he left, and called back, more forcefully, "And if you take anything I'll know."

"I won't!" Jared called. 

He started picking through all the bits and pieces, smiling at things he recognised, and puzzling at others. There was an old bookmark, their fake-ids from when they were seventeen, a coaster from the diner, a coat button. Then, hiding between the letters, he saw a tiny sliver of green, and he knew what it was before he pulled it out. 

A cinema ticket to Star Trek V, the matching pair to his own. He felt tears come into his eyes, looking at it. Wondered how the hell they hadn't worked it out all the way back then. Why he'd always been so careful to hide how he felt, not even to think about it. 

He put the ticket carefully to one side, he wouldn't steal it, but he thought Peter might agree to a swap. He wanted Peter's ticket, instead of his own. He wanted it because it was one of the first films they'd seen together, because they'd sat in the back row and Peter hadn't understood any of it, or known who anyone was, but he'd listened to Jared talk about it all the way home and been nice about it. He wanted it because when they got home they hadn't finished talking, so they'd sat outside on the kerb and talked for hours, until Jared's mom came and shouted at him to get inside. 

But he wanted it most of all because Peter had kept it for twenty-two years, and Jared kind of wriggled when he thought about that. He might not know what they were, or what they wanted to be, but Peter felt it too, he knew they were _something_. And that was turning out to be the best feeling Jared had ever known.


End file.
